October 21, 2013

September through mid-December I have a program that runs on Sundays, so I work six days a week. I leave work at 2:30pm several days throughout the week, but that doesn’t seem to make up for my missed weekend day. I developed this Sunday program eight years ago and it is near and dear to my heart. Still, by mid October, this one day weekend begins to get old.

I miss being home. I miss getting things organized for the week, accomplishing home projects and being around my family. I try not to think about it too much.

Luckily there is much in the world to keep me distracted and smiling…

1. A heartfelt thank-you and note and brownies from an amazing young woman.

2. Walking home from work on sunny fall days, kicking up dry leaves as I go.

3. My daughter is on FIRE about her classes this term.

4. The whacking sound the walnuts make when they fall 30 feet from their mother tree and hit the sidewalk. Strangely satisfying. (downside: one hit my little Finny on the back last week and he spun around and looked at me with an accusatory look on his face.)

5. Jesse Thorn’s interview with Nicole Holofcener on his Bullseye podcast. Holofcener is the writer and director of the movie Enough Said, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Catherine Keener and James Galdofini (love all, particularly the women). I loved several things about this interview 1) I love that when Holfcener and Louis-Dreyfus met, they talked about how much they love their children and the heartbreak of their kids going off to college …I get these women 2) the interview was NOT about the death of James Gadofini, thank you for that choice Jesse Thorn 3) Thorn focused on the female writer/director and the lead female character and on women and comedy, again thank you Jesse Thorn. Can’t wait to see the film.

(p.s. did you know that Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s name is pronounced “Lewy” Drefus? Yes, you did? And so did everyone else?)

6. Jesse Thorn’s Bullseye podcast.
I have only previously known Thorn as Bailiff Jesse on the Judge John Hodgeman podcast and was happy to finally listen to his Bullseye podcast. Thorne has a sensitivity that is almost as startling as his outbursts of laughter (at times, seriously startling…and endearing…evidenced at 12:48 in the clip linked above). Looking forward to listening to more.

8. Just so you won’t mistake me for someone with excellent taste in music, this song is also making me happy:Wake Me Up When Its All Over
It gives me that same temporary jolt of energy that I get when I eat pure sugar candy like Smarties and Nerds because it is the musical equivalent.
I will hate it a month from now.

9. This poem posted on a friend’s FB wall. It made me tear up, which is why I love poetry. So few words to access so much emotion.The House Dog’s Grave
by Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

It’s been a crappy week. I don’t’ know why. Hormones? The never-ending cold and gray weather? The news report about the treatment of women in Egypt? I’m feeling better today. In part because I do keep this list during the week.

My dear old friend Paul once said to me decades? ago, “Anyone can find some reason to be unhappy. Sometimes you have to work to be happy.” He wasn’t talking about people who live in poverty, or have diseases. He was talking about those privileged people in the world, like us, who really do have the power to change their perspective.

What’s making me happy this week:

1. My friend Paul and his positive perspective.

2. The film, The Sapphires. You MUST see this film. You will love, love, love it. Chris O’Dowd from Bridesmaides is it and is wonderful, the music is great, the story is great, the 4 female leads are all just awesome. I just saw it last night and I want to see it again today! I WILL end up owning this DVD. Please see it.

3. Extra, Desert Delights, Mint Chocolate chip gum. I don’t chew gum in public, because I know I get obnoxious about it. Most people do. But I chew it in my car to freshen my breath, or I chew it to keep myself from snacking at home The checkout guy at Bush’s saw I was buying Extra peppermint gum one day and said I HAD to try the Extra Mint chocolate chip flavor. Man I am hooked, as is my family!

4. The Red Shoes blog makes me happy, as does the web site and the store here in Ann Arbor. I want to live there. Catherine is real. And an amazing artist.

5. This in particular video Catherine linked on her blog is making me happy this week—because EXACTLY. It’s called “What’s Making You Happy.”

6. I finally saw the musical Spring Awakening last weekend when I was visiting my daughter. It was much heavier than I thought it would be, but I really liked it.

7. Listening to the Detroit Tigers home opener on the radio while driving to visit my daughter. Tiger’s baseball on radio was the soundtrack to my childhood summers. Listening to it gives me a warm feeling inside.

8. f***yournoguchicoffeetable blog makes me laugh. As my sister who sent it to me said, it’s a great reminder, “Not to take ourselves too seriously.” Oh so many antlers, ladders, stacked old suitcases with globes on top. As I read it, this blog is both saying, “I’m so jealous of your cool home design, f*** you!” and partly snickering at people who have tried so hard to be “cool” it’s just a fail. I guess It’s up to you to decide which is which!

9. Invisible bike helmets. So much to love about this video. The design throughout, the shoes and then finally they reveal the helmet design, by women. It’s genius.

10. I love new words. I misunderstood my son today. He said something about hanging out with his hooligans, but I heard it as “cooligans”—which I kind of liked.
And even though this word is like finger nails on a chalkboard to me for it’s hipster speak-ishness, I like that it’s new to me– “daylighting”, as in, “thanks for daylighting that issue for us. We didn’t realize it was happening.” Thanks to my sis for that one that she learned when having a conference with her son’s teachers. I would likely want to choke anyone who used that word with me. Still, like that I know that usage.

April 5, 2013

photos:
1. old dogs, as good as they get
2. cowboy songs
3. singer, from tom huffey’s “mirror” series

I sure would like to know what’s making you happy this week!

In the meantime, here’s what’s making me happy this week:

1. Mani/pedi AND I used a LivingSocial coupon. Happy!

2.NPRs Story Corps podcast. If you ever need your faith in humanity restored, listen. They are short, too short, but I am so moved by these I cry at…every…single…story. Does that make me happy? Yes, it does.

3. Body by Gap boy short undies that came in the mail this week. Yes indeed, new pretty underwear makes me happy! TMI? I know it makes other women happy. Does new underwear ever make men happy?

4. Cowboy songs by the Cactus Blossoms. I volunteered at the Ark this week and had no idea who the performers were. These fresh-faced brothers were the warm-up band. They had me at the first few notes of their sweet cowboy harmonies.

5. Not sure if Tom Hussey’s “Mirror” series makes me happy, but they make me something…introspective? This is how I see myself when I look in the mirror, so much younger than what the world sees. In my mirror, I’m still wearing braces.

7. I’m finally reading George Saunders. Not “Tenth of December,” according to the New York Times, “the best book you’ll read this year” -which I think was last year. Instead I’m reading “Civilwarland in Bad Decline,” as recommended by Glen Weldon from Pop Culture Happy Hour. I’m happy that I am finally reading the celebrated Saunders. My name finally came up on the library wait list. Is the book making me happy? No. I do get why Saunders is so fêted, but his satire is so close to the edge in my mind, that to me, the stories are equal parts funny, smart and terrifying.

9. My boy and spouse are spending the week in DC and are having a great time! I’m smiling right now just thinking about it. And very soon I will be hitting the road to visit my dear daughter for the weekend, also making happy!

10. The Humans of New York FB feed always makes me happy, but it’s this poem by a student, Fluorescent Adolescence, I found on HONY this week that I thought was pretty fantastic. I wish I had the author’s name.
Sometimes youth is not wasted on the young.

April 4, 2013

I watched my first James Bond movie last week, Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. Yes, I said my first. Ever. No, I’m not Amish.

I don’t like violence and I don’t like movies in which the female characters are nothing more than eye candy. But I am a mother of a teenager whom I adore and who will soon be off and running…fast and far away from me. So when invited by this boy to watch Casino Royale and Skyfall, I was willing to give it a try.

I was pleasantly surprised by these movies, in fact I look forward to seeing more. There was violence, yes, and I was born with a dominant sensitivity gene, so I didn’t love that part. But it wasn’t quite as violent as I had imagined.

As far as females, well Judi Dench was the most powerful character in these films and she kind of rocked in her toughness. There were definitely creepy parts– please James, sex with two different “owned” women in the same day and no hint of protection? Shall I teach you about STDs and exponents? Yikes.

I have to admit I almost blew my chances at watching Skyfall due to my obnoxious questions and comments during Casino Royale. I could not help but say things like, “Oh, he kissed her, she’s going to die.” “That one is going to turn out to be a bad guy.” My son accused me of seeing the movie before. He just needs another decade of movie watching to see the patterns. And besides, how can you have a new Bond girl if the old one is still alive? No Bond girl survives for a second movie, does she? And if you have a crazy, demented, bad guy, constrained and locked in a “display” cell with all 4 walls exposed, and he’s chill…he is going to escape. Saw that movie. It was called Silence of the Lambs.

When I was anxious someone was going to get hurt I couldn’t help it, “Is he going to die?” “Does he catch him?” “Where are they going?” and the worst…”What did he say?!”

I KNEW I was being obnoxious but I couldn’t help myself. I saw the words shoot out of my mouth and float in the air in front of my face before my brain could tell my mouth, “Shut it!” Guess who I sounded like—My OWN mom. (You are NOT obnoxious mom. You are awesome, ALWAYS. But you do ask questions during movies.)

Even more obnoxious, was when my son laughed at James Bond’s swimsuit, “Look how short his swimsuit is!” and I replied without a laugh, “Yes…just look.”

I’m the worst.

Luckily my dear son forgave my movie watching indiscretions, or maybe he is so used to tuning me out they didn’t even register. He allowed me to watch Skyfall with him a couple of days later. I was much better behaved.

Clearly I’m not the target audience for Bond films, I’m more of a Get Smart gal. But I’m going to keep my mouth shut and fake it, so I that I may be able to spend 20 more movies? 30 more hours? sharing time with this boy I love.